Calm Part of the Art of Mardi Gras Medicine

"There's a trauma coming in!"

After a long afternoon lull, the doctors and nurses manning MED-1 are about to get their first excitement of the night.

The information relayed over the radio sounds grim: Bicyclist hit by a car. It's Mardi Gras, which means someone was probably drinking.

Approaching sirens drown out the excited chatter inside Carolinas Medical Center's unique hospital on wheels. An eager crowd gathers by the entrance, waiting for a glimpse of the new patient.

Dr. Lee Garvey -- a veteran of emergency medicine at CMC -- sits away from it all, calmly perched on a diagnostic bed with a wry smile on his face.

"Four doctors for one patient," he says in a friendly aside. He knows he can hang back and wait to see if he's needed.

An ambulance pulls through the chain-link fence that surrounds MED-1's parking lot, just a couple of blocks from the Superdome. The red and blue lights flash through the glass doors as the paramedics quickly wheel their patient up the ramp and inside.

"Fifty-eight-year-old man on a bike, hit by a car going 25 mph," the lead medic announces. "He went up and hit the windshield, but he's only complaining of pain in his left leg."

Turns out the first trauma of the night isn't all that traumatic.

Garvey calmly walks over to supervise the younger LSU doctors as James Hodgin, a tall, jovial nurse from Winston-Salem, asks the patient what he calls "a couple of stupid questions." He's trying to gauge whether the man has a head injury.

"What day is it? What town do you live in? Who's the president of the United States." The man struggles with that last one.

"Were you wearing a helmet?" Hodgin asks.

No.

"Have you been drinking?"

He's had a couple.

Garvey lets the LSU doctors take the lead. He's here to help, not butt in when he isn't needed.

But he stays nearby, just in case.

Dr. Tom Blackwell, Garvey's colleague at CMC with the close-cropped white hair and wraparound sunglasses, is the brains behind MED-1, and its public face. He designed the state-of-the-art prototype and evangelizes for it all over the country.

Garvey's just fine perching in the background, whether it's on the night's first trauma or when reporters and federal officials come to gaze at Blackwell's medical marvel.

When he's needed, though, Garvey's right there, consulting on an X-ray at MED-1's computer console, or volunteering for most of the night shifts so Blackwell -- whose cell phone is always ringing -- can handle logistics.

"Tom's busy during the day, so I stay at night," is Garvey's summation. That's all there is to it.

When asked his strengths as a doctor, Garvey demurs, and talks instead about the accomplishments of his colleagues at CMC.

Like MED-1, this is only Garvey's second time in the field, but he's no stranger to disasters. He was in charge of CMC's emergency room in 1994 when a USAir flight crashed into a Charlotte neighborhood, killing 37 people and sending many more to his ER.

"I was thrust into that situation," he said.

With MED-1, he volunteered.

He spent two weeks in Waveland, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina, treating patients in a Kmart parking lot. After they sent him home, he couldn't stay away and drove back down for more.

Making this trip to New Orleans was an easy choice for him.

There's one case from Waveland that sticks with him the most: An elderly man who spent 10 days living in his truck after his home washed away.

The man arrived at the medical unit during its first week in Waveland, dehydrated and delirious. He had ridden his bike five miles to get there.

Garvey watched him "come back to life" over several days, to the point where he could laugh and joke with the doctors. When he was finally ready to leave, more misfortune hit: Someone had taken his bike.

He had his life, though, thanks to Garvey and the others.

The biker hit during Mardi Gras doesn't need as much help, but Garvey perches nearby anyway, quietly waiting, just in case.

Dr. Lee Garvey Age: 48.

Family: Wife and three daughters, ages 15-20.

Experience: Graduated medical school in 1988, finished his residency at Carolinas Medical Center in 1991, has practiced there ever since.

Specialty: Chest pain diagnosis

Why he likes the ER: "It's a fun way to practice medicine. We get to see the whole spectrum."

Fieldwork before Katrina: "Zero."

Observer reporter Scott Dodd and photographer Todd Sumlin traveled to New Orleans this week to document the work of the doctors, nurses and paramedics who staff MED-1. Carolinas Medical Center's hospital-on-wheels saved lives for seven weeks after Hurricane Katrina in a Kmart parking lot, and New Orleans health officials asked for the unit's help during Mardi Gras. For Dodd, this trip also marks a return to the disaster area; he covered Katrina's devastation from the Gulf Coast for Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Charlotte Observer

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